I vaguely remember when I was a teenager (1990, maybe) watching an episode of Charles S. Dutton’s short-lived television show Roc in which his nephew had read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and wanted to become a Muslim. I recall the moral of this episode was something like: never allow another’s passion for their religion to influence your choice to become a follower of that religion, as you should always join up for the right reasons, and that should always be borne out of your own self-awareness. Recently, when thinking about the point in my life when I first heard the name “Malcolm X,” I thought about this episode.

But, no, wait. Surely I heard about Malcolm X back in Mrs. Buckner’s fourth grade social studies class, during that week we studied the famous figures in black history. Was his image there, sandwiched in between the large, laminated flash cards of Sojourner Truth and George Washington Carver? Yes, I believe he was, now that I think about it. I still to this day take a lot from that week, associating Carver with peanut butter and Harriet Tubman with the Underground Railroad. The only thing I remember thinking about Malcolm X was where in the world a man would get a single letter as a last name.

So, I was exposed to Malcolm X for the first time back in fourth grade. Being arguably the most volatile and interesting personality that we studied during that week, why do I not remember anything more about him? Perhaps in 1984, public schools in Kentucky did not know how to handle Malcolm X. How do you explain to a group of young students (mostly white and overwhelmingly Christian) what Minister Malcolm stood for? Here was a man who was not a Christian, damned the government at every opportunity, and was betrayed and murdered in cold blood by his own race (albeit, with government assistance) in a bitter power-struggle. That is a can of worms that Mrs. Buckner, though courageous enough, knew she could not open back then.

But now is the time, I think, for Minister Malcolm to be exposed.

As a father and future teacher, I think Minister Malcolm’s legacy is exactly what we should be teaching children, whether they be black, white, brown, yellow, or red, to borrow a familiar refrain from his speeches. Malcolm X has left something for everyone if we are courageous and open-minded enough to look.

In his autobiography, written with then-journalist Alex Haley (who would soon after make history with another work, Roots, in 1976), Minister Malcolm narrated his journey from Harlem’s criminal underworld to his pilgrimage to Mecca, impressing us with the courage he displayed in search of human truth. His legacy for African-American literature is the record of his life, in the form of his autobiography. It is proof that anyone can dig themselves out of the deepest hole.

While the source-work for Minister Malcolm’s life may not satisfy a historian’s devout standard of authenticity, the question remains: What do we really want from Malcolm X? His legacy, whether real or feigned, is much more beneficial to the world than the small lesson one might take from preserving authentic history. The Malcolm X that we all know is the one that was courageous enough to develop his life’s philosophy in full view of the public eye. He is the one that is portrayed in this day and age as a martyr, a perfect example of how a human being can evolve spiritually, emotionally, and philosophically from the deepest pits of self-destruction and debauchery. He is the one that, above all, illustrates redemption, whether it be with a secular, lower-cased “r” or a religious, capitalized “R.”

My journey through Minister Malcolm’s autobiography has earned for me a great lesson in perseverance and courage. All people, especially young African-Americans languishing in crumbling neighborhoods with seemingly no way out, would serve themselves well to experience his life as written in the autobiography. There is nothing quite like this work in literature. It is metamorphosis, it is a quest. It is perhaps one of the most important works of any century, and will be at the top of the list in the literature of the African-American struggle for as long as the memory of that struggle endures.

Back in fourth grade, as I said, I remember wondering where in the world a man would get a letter for a last name. Now I know how he got it and why. I promise that my son will not have to wait as long. The ability to shed falsehoods when we come upon truth, no matter how painful the transition, is the least of which we can teach the young. We are all wrong about something, at one time or another; and Minister Malcolm shows us that it’s okay to be wrong, as long as we keep an open-mind.

Article name: Malcolm X – One of the Best Autobiographies Ever! essay, research paper, dissertation

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